Brooklyn cops mess up pot lab operation bust, lose suspect to suicide.

OK, as I understand this one: the cops suspected that there was a marijuana grow lab in a Brooklyn maraschino cherry company, but couldn’t get proof.  So they used an EPA complaint to get into the place, and then did the Hey! Do I smell POT? maneuver.  After a few hours of this, the owner of the place politely excused himself, went into his private bathroom, and shot himself in the head.

Man, there’s something in there for everybody to get angry about, huh? The pro-pot people are going to be upset about the fact that the grow lab had to be illegal in the first place. The libertarians and small-government folks can focus on the use of a convenient piece of government paper to get the cops somewhere they can go do what they REALLY wanted to do.  And here’s a point for the people who aren’t fretting over the first two: why the heck didn’t the cops secure the area and/or the owner properly? Once it was clear that the man was going to be arrested, the police should have made sure that he didn’t have, you know, access to a firearm and an opportunity to use it. Because ‘suicide in a bathroom’ isn’t the most horrible ending to that particular story.  It’s not even close.

Not the NYPD’s finest moment, that.

10 thoughts on “Brooklyn cops mess up pot lab operation bust, lose suspect to suicide.”

  1. “Because ‘suicide in a bathroom’ isn’t the most horrible ending to that particular story. It’s not even close.”

    !!??

    I assume that you mean that the armed agents of the thuggish government, who have basically worked their way into this poor schmuck’s private property by gaming the powers given to them by our Constitution, might have been shot?

    And this is so much worse a scenario than the poor schmuck’s suicide for being caught with pot that it’s not even close?

    If I’ve missed your point, I apologize, and ask you to amplify it for those as slow as I.

    Otherwise, I dissent.

    1. Leaving aside the question about whether a cop’s family deserves to be told that Daddy isn’t coming home tonight because another cop f*cked up a bust – and the NYPD isn’t the f*cking Stasi – there were almost certainly innocent bystanders around. There shouldn’t have been, because the cops should have secured the area… except that the cops didn’t secure the area, remember?

      1. I’m sorry, I’m really not trying to be a jerk about this.

        But . . .

        The cops were in a situation in which our Constitution gave them no power to go after someone in his own property. So, to get around that, they enlisted another government agency as a pretext, and went in.

        It ended with the guy – whose transgression was growing pot – dead.

        I’m not saying it would be a good thing for one of those cops to die, even if they were part of the gang that violated the Constitution by tricking their way in. Nor am I saying it would be a good thing for a bystander to die.

        But it was just as bad that the pot grower died. For growing pot.

        At the very least, it certainly wasn’t “way better” that he did.

        1. Moe was clearly suggesting that the perp could have managed to kill other people before ending up dead.
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          Your comparison is in error for that reason.
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          Furthermore, and I speak only for myself here, your evaluation is not universal.
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          If Roman Polanksi died soon of natural causes, the death would not be a bad thing, but a good thing for humanity. That Jeff Dahmer deserved it, and good riddance, does not mean endorsing prison murder. One can object to prison murders, and still think that executions are proper for things that were capital offenses before the crime was committed.

          1. So, the death of a pot grower is not unlike the death of Roman Polanski.

            Yeah, I get it now.

  2. The EPA complaint was said to be water discharge related.
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    The description of the illegal operation makes it sound like they were doing at least some processing on site.
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    This might well have involved water discharged to the environment. Which would not have been on the EPA’s paperwork, hence maybe a legitimate violation.
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    Dead, the man cannot be made to implicate his associates. The Cherry plant was a family business, and between going over his family with a fed toothed comb, and the possibility of taking his kids into state custody, he would’ve had some incentive to testify.
    .
    Was the opportunity for suicide on purpose or an accident? If on purpose, who were they trying to shield? If accidental, should drug dealers be put on suicide watch as a matter of course?

    1. Crime scenes should be secured.
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      Suspects or witnesses should be secured.
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      If EPA have a complaint, were the formal notification-of-complaint steps taken?
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      Just how much will the police be paying the widow and/or family after the negligence suit settles?
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      Mew

      1. Might not be much. It was a family business, and he seems to have trusted them enough to see to his children. They may well be dirty. A severe enough Federal investigation may preempt such a suit.

        1. That’d be the same Federal investigator drones who signed off on the EPA water use warrant, right?
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          What’s your answer to “who watches the watchmen?”
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          Mew
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          p.s. the graphic novel was better

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